A pair of Senate Democrats are accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of overseeing a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians, raising urgent alarm as Israel begins its takeover of Gaza City and threatens to annex parts of the West Bank.
Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Oreg.) said they came to their conclusion throughout a seven-day trip to the region last week, noting that their personal observations point to the Israeli government seemingly trying to remove an ethnic or religious group from a territory through force or intimidation.
“Based on our conversations and our observations, we came away with the inescapable conclusion that the Netanyahu government is engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and slow-motion ethnic cleansing in the West Bank,” Van Hollen told reporters Thursday morning from his office on Capitol Hill.
Ethnic cleansing is not a crime formally defined under international law, but its practice can constitute crimes against humanity and be part of a larger legal determination of genocide, according to the United Nations.
The International Court of Justice, part of the U.N., is considering a judgement on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Also, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his former defense minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity over the conduct of Israel’s war against Hamas. The ICC also issued warrants for leaders of the militant group for their launching of a terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, but those indicted were killed by Israel amid the war.
Van Hollen and Merkley are among the most active members in the Democratic party criticizing Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza, where more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, famine declared in parts of the strip, deaths from starvation tick up and the level of destruction is estimated to take more than 20 years to rebuild.
Still, the charge of ethnic cleansing marks a new level of censure and an urgent appeal to the international community to block Netanyahu and President Trump’s efforts to push out and incentivize Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
While the destruction, suffering and death in the nearly two-year war in Gaza is an immediate crisis, the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated rapidly, with increasing violence from Israeli settlers against Palestinians and far-right members of Netanyahu’s government pushing for annexation of territory.
“Any hope for a two-state solution is hanging by a thread,” Van Hollen said Thursday, referring to the decades-long efforts to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip under a single Palestinian government.
“Clearly, we’ve already got a number of nails in this coffin, and if we stay on the current path, the door will shut entirely,” he added.
Absent a negotiated solution between Israel and the Palestinians, there’s little option to establish a Palestinian state without the support of the U.S., which holds veto power in the UN’s Security Council that would confer formal recognition.
But opposition to, and criticism of Israel is slowly growing in the Congress, even as the vast majority still back U.S. support for Jerusalem. In July, more than half of the Democratic caucus in the Senate voted to block weapons sales to Israel.
Republicans are largely united in supporting Israel, but there are defections in Trump’s MAGA base and criticism from conservative personalities like Meghan Kelly and Steve Bannon. American voters’ overall approval is falling, according to a recent Gallup poll, and, most notably, is falling among young Republican voters.
“I think the country is way ahead of the Congress on this issue,” Van Hollen said.
He added, “I think a lot of people who are following what’s happening in Gaza are horrified, and I think that is beginning to penetrate the Congress, and I think there’s a growing sense the United States should not be complicit in starvation in Gaza, and nor should the United States be complicit in a campaign of depopulation and ethnic cleansing of Gaza.”
Trump has largely backed off efforts to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, posting on his social media site Truth Social on Wednesday for Hamas to return all remaining living hostages it has held since Oct. 7 in exchange for ending the war.
Israel and the Trump administration have reportedly reached out to African countries to take Palestinians from Gaza, and the president has said that Palestinians should be relocated while the strip is being rebuilt, likely indefinitely.
The administration is also reportedly floating a plan to encourage the temporary relocation of two million Palestinians while the U.S., exercising control over Gaza for a period of 10 years, would allow the territory to be rebuilt focusing on tourism, high-tech manufacturing.
Van Hollen called reports of the plan “absolutely sickening,” offering profits to investors amid the forcible removal of a population.
“It’s a really sickening picture, and it is so dishonest to suggest that this is, quote, voluntary, for all the reasons we’ve said, not voluntary,” he said.
“You’ve lost your home, you’ve lost your school, you’ve lost access to your hospital, you’ve lost access to any kind of agricultural lands, let alone the fact that we’re now well over 60,000 people killed, half of them children,” the Maryland Democrat said. “So anybody who tries to spin this as voluntary is engaged in one of the grossest frauds that I can ever remember.”
Van Hollen and Merkley are urging a united, international pressure campaign from Europe and Arab and Gulf nations against Netanyahu to step back from the brink of driving Palestinians permanently out of their homes and come to an agreement that preserves territory for self-governance and the possibility of a two-state solution.
“If there is a sliver of hope… it is the possibility of a very strong international response with a united Europe and the united Arab world all saying there is a future of an agreement in the region,” that provides security assurances and economic incentives with Israel but that also recognizes Palestinian sovereignty, Merkley said.
“And yes, the odds of that seem slim, but you see just this growing dismay around the world about what is unfolding,” he added.
